Federal Budget

Biden’s DOA Budget

Featured image Joe Biden unveiled his 2025 budget proposal earlier today. In general, presidents’ budgets are hardly worth discussing. They project revenue and spending over the next ten years, and if you go back and look at them a few years later, they usually bear no relation to reality. And, in this instance, there is zero chance that Congress will pass anything resembling Biden’s budget, which can best be seen as a »

Power Line’s Biggest Failure

Featured image In 2011, I think it was, we were alarmed about the metastasizing national debt. We had a great idea: let’s sponsor a competition to induce the creation of art works–videos, songs, paintings, plays, and more–that call attention to the dangers of the national debt. Thus was born the Power Line Prize competition. I made some phone calls and raised, as I recall, $125,000 in prize money. Those were the days! »

A Corrupt Legislative Process

Featured image People often talk about one thing or another as being “broken.” But what is really broken is the legislative process in Congress. The manner in which vitally important bills are enacted today is light years away from what the Founders intended and the Constitution contemplates. When Congressmen are voting for bills sight unseen–bills that have been crafted and negotiated in darkness–we have at best a semi-democracy. This tweet by Senator »

We Are Broke

Featured image When I was young, there was a lot of concern and debate about the federal deficit and the national debt. Legitimate budget hawks ran for office, and often won. Even Democrats, like William Proxmire, ran as guardians of the public treasury. But at some point, as deficits continued to mount and the feared crisis failed to materialize, politicians unapologetically began to print money. Thus, the entire federal debt at the »

Americans At Least Pretend to Want Less Government

Featured image As government at all levels continues to grow, as our federal debt spirals out of control, and as the constitutional ideal of limited government fades into history, it is good to know that most Americans at least claim to believe in smaller government. Rasmussen reports: By a 14-point margin, most voters still prefer a limited-government agenda. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 52% of Likely »

Why We Are Careening Toward Bankruptcy

Featured image The United States is, as Mark Steyn says, the brokest nation in history. And yet, as our national debt rises higher and higher, and the cost of servicing that debt begins to drive out essential federal spending–like defense–there is no end in sight. For decades, the fiscal insanity in Washington has been palpable, and yet the political will to do anything about it is lacking. Why is that? This News »

Biden In Twilight

Featured image That Joe Biden is long gone in senility is obvious to everyone. True, not everyone will admit it: in the longer version of the CNN interview that Lloyd Billingsley wrote about earlier, Hillary Clinton fulsomely praised Biden’s extraordinary record of accomplishment. I suppose she thought the CNN audience might buy it. It is not necessary to trace Biden’s decline on a daily basis, but today’s episode is worth noting. Biden »

Budget Showdown Ahead

Featured image I yearn for the days when people cared about the national debt, and when spending and taxes were the principal issues that divided Left from Right. Those issues haven’t receded because our fiscal situation has grown less dire; on the contrary. Currently, the federal government is forecasting $2 trillion a year deficits. With the fiscal year ending on September 30, a budget showdown is in the offing. The Epoch Times »

Voters Are With McCarthy On the Debt Limit

Featured image Tomorrow, Joe Biden is scheduled to meet with Kevin McCarthy and other Congressional leaders to discuss the debt ceiling plan that has passed the House of Representatives. On the eve of that meeting, Rasmussen polled public sentiment on the debt ceiling. These are the key questions that Rasmussen asked: 2* Republicans in the House of Representatives have passed a plan that would raise the debt ceiling and also limit government »

This Year’s Default Drama

Featured image We go through this periodically: the In party wants to raise the federal debt limit so it can disburse even more money than the trillions we are already spending, while the Out party tries to use its leverage to trade support for more debt for something it wants. The whole thing is a game of chicken, as everyone knows the limit will ultimately be raised, and more debt will be »

Liar-in-Chief: ‘Republicans should pass my budget instead of calling [for] defunding the police’

Featured image Yes, he really said that. Speaking to a group of mass shooting survivors in Monterey Park, California, on Tuesday, President Joe Biden said, “Congressional Republicans should pass my budget instead of calling for cuts in these [mental health] services or defunding the police or abolishing the FBI, as we hear from our MAGA Republican friends.” Biden: "Congressional Republicans should pass my budget instead of calling [for] defunding the police." pic.twitter.com/YpAlG7Kq3d — »

Biden administration’s profligate spending claims another victim, more will follow

Featured image As Warren Buffet once famously said, “Only when the tide goes out do you learn who has been swimming naked.” And last week, that turned out to be the Silicon Valley Bank, whose customers include tech startups, venture-capital firms, and Napa Valley wineries. SVB’s leadership certainly deserves their fair share of the blame. Bankers, more than anyone else, knew that an aggressive interest rate tightening cycle lay ahead. Federal Reserve »

The Ticking Debt Time Bomb

Featured image Growth of the national debt has accelerated to proportions that would have been unthinkable not many years ago. And yet, liberals keep telling us not to worry, and that raising the debt limit is the only “responsible” course. Debt apologists like Barry Eichengreen. A very smart friend takes Mr. Eichengreen to task. What follows is by him, I have left it in plain rather than italic type for the sake »

Student Debt Forgiveness Comes to the Supreme Court

Featured image In August of last year, the Biden administration announced, by executive order, that some $400 billion in outstanding student debt would be forgiven. There was no statutory basis for this order, and many assumed that it was an election-year Hail Mary that ultimately would lose in the courts, but would garner Democrat votes in the midterms. That appears to be what happened. The legality of Biden’s purported debt forgiveness has »

Don’t Fear the Shutdown

Featured image Rasmussen has some interesting poll results today: As President Joe Biden prepares to face off with House Republicans over the U.S. government’s debt ceiling, a majority of voters would rather have a government shutdown than to have Congress sign off on more spending. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 56% of Likely U.S. Voters would rather have a partial government shutdown until Congress can agree »

About the Debt Limit

Featured image We go through this every few years: an alleged crisis over the federal debt limit. There is a strong aura of deja vu: the Democrats say the sky is falling, and Republicans try to bargain for something in exchange for raising the debt limit, while the press, all the while, beats up on Republicans. This time the hysteria is, if anything, even more over the top than in the past. »

Do Americans Hate Deficits?

Featured image I believe that polling has long shown broad support for a balanced budget and for a balanced budget amendment at the federal level. (Most states already have such a requirement.) Rasmussen’s findings on Congress’s latest debtravangza are consistent with that history: The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 76% of Likely U.S. Voters are concerned about the size of the U.S. national debt – now more »